Exercises for Reducing Belly Fat
I get asked a lot: “what are the best exercises for tightening up the abs? No *one* exercise is going to help you trim fat from your belly and tighten it up. You could literally do crunches every single day for months and not see an inch go away from around your torso. The good news is that there are some strategies that can help you burn your belly fat—but crunches aren’t going to do it for you. Read more here to learn how to eat and exercise to start making progress!
In my work as a personal trainer, I get asked a lot: “What are the best exercises for tightening up the abs?”
The truth is that no *one* exercise is going to help you trim fat from your belly and tighten it up. You could literally do crunches every single day for months and not see an inch go away from around your torso. There are a few reasons for this:
👉 First, if you’re not in a calorie deficit, you’re not likely going to see much fat loss anywhere on your body, much less in your belly. Remember that fat is your body’s battery packs, and to burn through it you need your body burning more energy than what you’re taking in through the food that you eat. When your body uses more calories for things like daily activities and exercise than what you eat, then your body will tap into its fat stores.
👉 Even if you are in a caloric deficit, another reason you may struggle to lose inches around the belly fat is that visceral fat around your organs burns a little differently than the subcutaneous fat under your skin. Belly fat serves the important purpose of protecting your organs and regulating your core temperature and hormones. So it’s the last place that your body is going to want to take fat from when you’re in a calorie deficit or when you’re experiencing high stress. That’s why visceral fat in general responds much slower to a caloric deficit than subcutaneous fat in your legs and arms.
👉 Also if you tend to drink alcohol frequently or eat a lot of refined sugars, then your body is more likely to hang onto visceral fat in your midsection. Both alcohol and sugar create an inflammatory response in the body. When that happens, you’re more likely to store fat in your belly.
The good news is that there are some strategies that can help you burn your belly fat—but crunches aren’t going to do it for you.
First off, you need to make sure that you’re in a calorie deficit—meaning that your body is burning more calories than what you’re taking in through your food. To do this, you’ll need to first manage what you eat by tracking your calorie intake, meal planning, or following a meal plan. Unless you’re in a caloric deficit, you’re going to have a really hard time seeing your overall body fat go down over time—including the fat around your belly. If you need help with this, check out my meal prep guide and nutrition coaching program.
Another thing you can do is increase the amount of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains that you eat every day and boost your dietary fiber intake. Visceral fat responds much better to a high-fiber diet than just a calorie deficit alone. If you’re following the Healthy Plate model, then you already know that half of what you eat at every meal should be vegetables (or vegetables and fruit) and that most of the time the grains products you eat should be whole grains. Aim to eat 25-35g of dietary fiber per day to improve your health and to boost your visceral fat burning.
Also, make sure to keep your consumption of alcohol and refined sugars to a minimum. Cutting out alcohol will not only help your body prioritize burning fat for energy, but it will also have a host of other benefits for your health. Cutting out refined sugars will reduce the frequency of insulin spikes in your body. This will, in turn, reduce the amount of sugar your body moves from your bloodstream to your fat cells.
In terms of exercise, the best way to work out to burn belly fat is to increase your body’s daily calorie burn. This means doing cardiovascular exercise (at least 150 minutes per week) and muscle-building resistance training (2-3 times per week).
Cardiovascular exercise is a great way to get your body to burn as much as 200-300 calories in a single workout. Any activity that gets you moving and your heart rate pumping at a moderate intensity counts. This can be as simple as going for a brisk walk, bike ride, or taking a group fitness class at your local gym.
Remember that building muscle is a calorie-expensive activity—so you can increase your daily calorie burn by doing resistance training on 2 or 3 days each week. Resistance training can be done at a gym, with hand weights, bands, or even your own body weight. Check out my Body Sculpt programs for all levels and I’ll teach you how to build muscle and boost your metabolism with resistance training.
You can also ask your questions live when I’m streaming on my Twitch channel Tuesdays and Fridays. You can also ask questions live during this week’s private Coaching Call in the Discord if you’re one of my clients, a training program subscriber, or a Tier 3 subscriber on Twitch.
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ABOUT JAYD HARRISON
Jayd Harrison is a personal trainer and content creator. She helps people to build muscle, burn fat, and clean up their diets with her online coaching programs and social media content. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch and follow on social media:
Abs Are Made in the Kitchen
It's no secret that when it comes to losing weight, there are a variety of factors that come into play - including exercise, sleep, stress levels, and more. However, when it comes down to it, though, the majority of fat loss really does come down to managing what you eat. Read more to learn some starting tips for managing your calorie intake to get your body burning fat!
It's no secret that when it comes to losing weight, there are a variety of factors that come into play - including exercise, sleep, stress levels, and more. However, when it comes down to it, though, the majority of fat loss really does come down to managing what you eat.
As I tell my clients and followers all the time–80% of fat loss comes down to diet.
Now, I know that the idea of "managing what you eat" can sound a bit daunting or restrictive. After all, many of us enjoy indulging in our favorite foods and treats from time to time. Eating yummy food is for many of us the *one special thing* that we allow ourselves to feel good every day.
But the good news is that managing what you eat doesn't have to mean depriving yourself of the things you love. Instead, it's all about finding a balance and making small, sustainable changes to your diet over time.
One way that I like to guide my clients is to have them focus on adding more to their diet instead of taking away. That sounds backwards, right? But it really works!
For example, instead of saying “I need to cut out all carbs or all sweets,” instead focus on incorporating more whole, nutrient-dense foods into your diet. When planning your meals and snacks, think first about adding more of what your body needs to feel its best - such as lean proteins, fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats. This approach can help you to avoid going into a “deprivation mindset,” which just feels sucky and can cause your system to fight you on making changes.
You might also try tracking your calorie intake to get a better sense of how much you're really eating. Many people have no clue how many calories are actually in the food their eating every day–which is a big problem if you’re trying to get your body to burn fat.
Remember that body fat is like your body’s battery packs where you store excess energy from your food. When you take in more energy than what your body spends on most days, the excess gets stored as fat. To burn fat effectively, you need to eat fewer calories than what your body spends so that it taps into those energy stores. If you’re not tracking the calories in the food that you eat, it will be hard to know whether or not you’re balancing your energy budget in a way that promotes fat loss.
If you hate tracking, consider creating a weekly meal plan, or you can follow one that is tailor-made to your calorie needs. Planning your meals and snacks ahead of time can cut down on the tediousness of tracking everything you eat every day, and it will also save you time and mental energy at meal times. If you need help getting started on meal planning, check out my Guide to Meal Planning–which includes step-by-step instructions for planning your fat-loss diet and an example meal plan with recipes to get you started. I also offer a variety of downloadable meal plans on my website and make custom meal plans for my nutrition coaching clients, so you’ve got lots of options!
Of course, it's worth noting that managing what you eat is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to losing weight and improving your overall health. It's important to also prioritize getting enough sleep, reducing stress, and engaging in regular physical activity in order to support your body and mind.
But don’t underestimate the importance of your diet when it comes to fat loss. Many people make the mistake of thinking that they can just get exercising more and that will help them to lose weight. However, this approach can often back fire and cause people to ultimately gain weight! That’s because as you exercise more (especially if you’re doing cardio), your appetite will go up–causing you to eat more. If you aren’t watching what you eat and paying attention to your calories, you can easily begin to eat more calories than what your body is spending through exercise.
So if you're looking to lose weight and keep it off for good, then you gotta manage what you eat. Remember–you can’t out-train a bad diet!
Get 4 weeks of meal planning and save 20% with this High Protein Meal Plan Bundle!
Fuel your gains with delicious recipes like Vanilla Protein Pancakes, Pesto Chicken Quesadillas, One Pot Cheeseburger Pasta, and more!
Includes a collection of recipes, nutritional info, and a calendar for when to prep and eat each meal.
ABOUT JAYD HARRISON
Jayd Harrison is a personal trainer and content creator. She helps people to build muscle, burn fat, and clean up their diets with her online coaching programs and social media content. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch and follow on social media:
How to Track Your Progress
One of the best ways to stay motivated in your fitness journey is to track your progress! Taking body measurements and progress photos every few weeks can give you a sense of momentum to keep showing up for your workouts and diet plan. Read more to learn how to track your workouts, take progress photos, track body weight, body measurements, and more.
One of the best ways to stay motivated in your fitness journey is to track your progress! Taking body measurements and progress photos every few weeks can give you a sense of momentum to keep showing up for your workouts and diet plan. It can also help you to avoid hitting a plateau.
There are 5 main strategies that I recommend to track your fitness progress:
Track Your Workouts
Take Progress Photos
Track Your Body Weight
Take Body Measurements
Measure Your Resting Heart Rate
Let’s take a look at each strategy in more detail in the sections below.
1. Track Your Workouts
A great way to see if your program is working is to track your workouts. This involves writing down what exercises you do, how many sets & reps you perform, and how much weight you use. Doing this creates a record of your progression over time.
If you’re one of my clients or subscribers, you can track your workouts in the Trainerize app or in your program spreadsheet. If you’re doing your own program, you can make your own spreadsheet or record your workouts in a journal or fitness app.
Each day that you train, record how much resistance you use for each exercise, as well as how many sets and reps you perform. It’s also a good idea to keep track of how difficult each set is. I encourage my clients to rate the difficulty of their sets in a Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) between 1 and 10:
RPE 1-4: Light resistance that can be used for mobility, recovery, and form emphasis.
RPE 5: Warmup Resistance Level (5 Reps in Reserve)
RPE 6: 4 Reps in reserve. Resistance level that one can move quickly for speed work (+/- 8 reps pending on speed/training goal).
RPE 7: 3 Reps In Reserve. Able to move quickly, form stays solid, and you could definitely get 3 more reps.⠀
RPE 8: 2 reps in Reserve. Resistance level is challenging but isn’t so heavy that you couldn’t do at least 2 more reps.
RPE 9: 1 rep in reserve. Tough but could squeeze out one more rep if you needed to.⠀
RPE 10: 0 reps in reserve. Max effort, couldn’t do another rep if your life depended on it.
For muscle building, you should generally keep your effort to an RPE 6, 7, or 8. As you get stronger and build more muscle, you’ll need to add on more repetitions, more sets, or more resistance to keep the exercises challenging. This is called “progressive overload.” Being able to do more reps, sets, or weight over time is a good sign that your program is working!
Keep in mind, however, that if you are in a caloric deficit and focusing on fat loss, it will take much longer for you to add more reps, sets, or resistance to your exercises. You may even see your strength and work capacity decrease, depending on how deep your cut is. That’s because your body is in a catabolic state focused more on breaking tissue down rather than building new tissue (as opposed to being in an anabolic state, focused on building tissue). This is totally normal, and most people see their strength come back rapidly once they end their cuts and enter into a maintenance or bulk phase.
2. Take Progress Photos
Another excellent way to track your progress is to taking progress photos every week or every few weeks. This creates a visual record of all the small, easy-to-miss changes that happen in your body throughout your program.
When you take your photos, try to keep the lighting and camera angle the same each time. It's also best to wear minimal clothing (like shorts and a sports bra). You can get someone to take progress photos for you or you can take them yourself by standing in front of a mirror.
For best results, take photos standing tall with your whole body in the frame. Make sure to take several photos: one facing forward, another showing your side profile, and another showing your back to the camera.
To track your muscle definition over time, you can also take several shots flexing in different poses:
I recommend taking progress photos at the beginning and end of each block of training, if not every week.
3. Track Your Body Weight
Another way to track your progress is to take your body weight either every day, every week, or once every few weeks. For fat loss, we generally look for body weight to decrease over time. For building muscle, we generally want to see body weight go up slowly over the course of a few weeks or months.
To get the most accurate data possible, do your weigh-ins at the same time each day (like in the morning, before breakfast). Also, wear minimal clothing and make sure to write down your weight in a fitness journal or track it in your fitness app.
Keep in mind that body weight isn’t always a straightforward indicator of progress. There are many things that can affect your weight on a day-to-day basis beyond fat loss and muscle gains. Water weight, your hormonal cycle, and even the food that you eat throughout the day can all cause your weight to fluctuate rapidly from one day to another or even from hour to hour.
It’s not uncommon to see body weight go up after a “treat meal” or after a few days on a diet break—especially if you eat a lot of carbohydrate-packed or sodium-dense foods. These things cause your body will retain more water, which can make you heavier. Your body will release that extra water weight when you exercise again. You can also flush it out by drinking lots of water and staying hydrated!
Also keep in mind that if you are in the process of what we call a “recomp” (i.e., you’re burning fat and building muscle at the same time), your body weight may not change much from week to week—even if you are making progress. That’s because in general, losing fat causes your body weight to decrease, while building muscle causes your weight to go up. When you do both at the same time, your body weight might stay the same or even increase, even though your clothes may be fitting looser and you may look leaner. In this case, you may want to rely more on progress photos and other body measurements (more on that below) to get a sense of your progress over time.
4. Take Body Measurements
Taking body measurements is one of the most effective ways to track your progress in both fat loss and muscle gains. For the most accurate measurements, use a telescope tape measure* (made specifically for taking body measurements). You can also use a flexible, inelastic tape measure or a cloth measuring tape.
Take your measurements at least twice to ensure accuracy (taking the average between the numbers).
Your waist and hip measurements are the most important for indicating progress in your fat loss and overall wellness. Start by measuring the circumference of your belly around your waist by wrapping the measuring tape around your torso at the level of your belly button. Make sure that it's straight and that you’re not holding it too tight, and avoid holding your breath. Record the inches or centimeters for your waist in your fitness journal or tracking app.
Next, wrap the measuring tape around the widest part of your hips and record the number of inches as your hips circumference.
To stay healthy, you’ll want to maintain a waist-to-hip ratio of below .95 (for men) or .90 (for women). To find your waist-to-hip ratio, divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement.[1, 2, 3]
If you are trying to build muscle, take measurements of the major muscle groups in your arms and legs, taking all measurements from the same side of your body (left or right):
Biceps: Wrap the measuring tape around the midpoint between the shoulder bone and the elbow of one arm.
Forearms: Wrap the measuring tape around the widest part of your lower arm just below the elbow.
Chest: Stand tall and wrap the measuring tape around the widest part of your chest.
Thigh: Wrap the measuring tape around your thigh at the midpoint between the lower part of the glutes and the back of the knee (or use the widest part of the thigh).
Calves: Measure the circumference of your calves at the halfway point between the knee and the ankle (or at the widest part of your calves).
Another important body measurements is body fat percentage. To stay healthy, it’s best to keep your body fat within a certain range of percentages:
Men:
Ages 20-29: between 8% and 18.6%
Ages 30-39: between 8% and 21.3%
Ages 40-49: between 8% and 23.4%
Ages 50-59: between 8% and 24.6%
Over 60: between 8% and 25.2%
Women:
Ages 20-29: between 14% and 22.7%
Ages 30-39: between 14% and 24.6%
Ages 40-49: between 14% and 27.6%
Ages 50-59: between 14% and 30.4%
Over 60: between 14% and 31.3%[4]
You can use a smart scale, handheld device, or skin calipers to measure your body fat percentage.
Keep in mind that all methods of measuring body fat percentage have varying levels of accuracy. Smart scales and handheld devices usually use bioelectrical impedance analysis—which measures your body composition based on the rate at which an electrical current travels through your body. Factors like your hydration and sodium levels as well as your hormonal cycle can affect the result number. So always take these measurements with a grain of salt, looking for general trends over time rather than focusing on the day-to-day number.
5. Resting Heart Rate
Another helpful way to track your progress over time is to take note of your resting heart rate. This is the number of times your heart beats per minute while you’re at rest. Normal resting heart rates are between 60 and 100 BPM. In general, we want to see this number decrease over time, indicating that your heart is getting more efficient.
It’s best to take your resting heart rate in the morning before you get out of bed. Find your pulse with your index and middle finger either on your wrist or the side of your throat. Set a timer for 1 minute and count the number of times you feel your heartbeat within that time. Record this number in your fitness journal or tracking app periodically to see how your heart health improves over time.
Get Tracking!
You can use any or all of the methods above to track your progress as you get more in shape. If you have any questions or difficulties with the program, please feel free to reach out! Make sure that you are a member of the Coaching Corner Discord server, where you can post questions and share your progress!
You can also find me live on my Jaydigains Twitch channel every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 11:30am and 3pm EST for my Fit Q&A’s. Follow or subscribe to get notified whenever I go live!
Can’t wait to see your progress :)
-Jayd
[1] Price, G. M., Uauy, R., Breeze, E., Bulpitt, C. J., & Fletcher, A. E. (2006). Weight, shape, and mortality risk in older persons: elevated waist-hip ratio, not high body mass index, is associated with a greater risk of death. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 84(2), 449–460. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/84.1.449
[2] Fatemeh Moosaie, Seyede Marzie Fatemi Abhari, Niloofar Deravi, Arman Karimi Behnagh,Sadaf Esteghamati, Fatemeh Dehghani Firouzabadi, Soghra Rabizadeh, Manouchehr Nakhjavani, and Alireza Esteghamati. (2021). Waist-To-Height Ratio Is a More Accurate Tool for Predicting Hypertension Than Waist-To-Hip Circumference and BMI in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: A Prospective Study. Front. Public Health, 07 October 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.726288
[3] World Health Organization. (2008). Waist circumference and waist-hip ratio report of a WHO expert consultation. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44583/9789241501491_eng.pdf?sequence=1
[4] Villines, Z. (2022). Body fat percentage charts for men and women. Medicalnewstoday.com. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/body-fat-percentage-chart#men
*This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.
What to Expect During a Cut
If you’ve been building muscle for a while, you may be ready to enter into what we call a “cut” phase in your training. Follow these tips to get started and learn how to eat, exercise, and track your progress throughout your fat loss journey.
If you’ve been building muscle for a while, you may be ready to enter into what we call a “cut” phase in your training.
A cut is a period of training where you focus on burning fat by eating a caloric deficit. You need to eat less energy than what you spend every day for a period of several weeks to several months. This will force your body to tap into the energy stored in your subcutaneous fat, which will allow you to get leaner.
It’s important to set a realistic, measurable goal for your fat loss, and then create a plan for how you will eat and exercise to achieve that goal. This will help to keep you on track and motivated throughout the course of your cut. Follow the tips below to get started.
Getting Started
Before beginning your cut, it’s important to set a clear goal of when your cut will end. Setting a clear and measurable goal will help you to track your progress and stay motivated along the way.
Many people opt for a certain body weight they want to be at by the end of their cut. Keep in mind that to stay healthy, experts recommend a fat loss goal of no more than 2lb of fat per week. Keep that number in mind while setting a deadline for when you’d like to end your cut.
Also take note that using body weight may not be the best measurement of progress during your cut—especially if you are in your first year or so of consistent strength training. This is because even as your body burns fat, you’re also building muscle (which takes up less space in the body, but is also heavier).
So for this reason, I’m a bigger fan of using other methods of measurement for fat loss progress.
A great way to track your fat loss is to use the measurement of inches around the belly and hips. If you are tracking inches around your waist, you can set a goal of how many inches your want your waist to be at based on the percentage of your body height--divide your waist in inches by your height in inches, and then multiply by 100:
Use these numbers to set a goal for yourself of where you’d like to be by the end of your fat loss phase.
Another way to measure progress is by body fat percentage. Our bodies need a certain level of fat to be healthy and maintain all our body functions. Essential fat levels are the minimum that our bodies need to be healthy. For women, that is usually about 14%, whereas for men it is about 8%.
The American Council on Exercise (ACE) categorizes body fat percentages according to these levels of fitness and health:
So when you set your goal for your cut, make sure to keep it in a healthy range and be realistic about how much of a deficit you’ll be able to maintain in order to reach it!
You can use this chart by BuiltLean to get a rough idea of what your will look like at different body fat percentages and use it to set a goal of where you’d like to be by the end of your cut.
Once you have set your fat loss goal, you’ll be ready to create a plan for how to eat and how to exercise to achieve that goal.
How to Eat During a Cut
We all have a certain number of calories that our bodies need every day to maintain themselves without gaining or losing weight. This number is called our maintenance level of calories.
When we eat more calories than our bodies burn every day for maintenance (i.e., a calorie surplus), our bodies use the surplus energy to build tissue (like body fat and muscle). To burn body fat, you’ll need to eat below your maintenance level of calories (i.e., a calorie deficit).
To determine how many calories you should eat every day, you first need to figure out what your maintenance level of calories is.
You can get a rough estimate of your maintenance level of calories by calculating your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) using an online calculator like the one linked below.
Keep in mind that your TDEE is just a rough estimation of your maintenance level of calories. Your actual maintenance calories is something you’ll need to test over the course of a few weeks by eating your goal number of calories on average every day and seeing how your body weight responds.
To test your maintenance level of calories, begin by measuring your body weight, and then eat the amount of calories every day that you calculated as your TDEE (use a meal tracker app like MyFitnessPal to track your daily intake). At the end of 1 week, measure your body weight again, and compare your results:
If your weight stayed about the same from the beginning to the end of the week, then the number of calories you ate each day is pretty close to your actual maintenance level of calories.
If you lost weight, then it’s likely that you ate below your actual maintenance level of calories–so you’ll add between 100 and 250 calories to your daily goal and test that for another week and compare results again.
If you gained weight, then it’s likely that you ate above your actual maintenance level of calories–so you’ll need to subtract between 100 and 250 calories from your daily calorie goal and test that new number for a week.
Keep adjusting and testing your calories until your weight stabilizes (stays the same). Once it stabilizes, you know you’ll have reached your actual maintenance level of calories.
Once you know what your maintenance level of calories, you can plan your cut by determining how much of a deficit you’ll keep your body in. This depends on how quickly you want to lose fat.
It takes about 3500 calories to burn 1 lb of fat—but you’ll need to spread that number out over the course of a few days or weeks. To lose 1 lb of fat per week, you’ll need to eat 500 calories below your maintenance level every day (for a weekly total of 3500 calories deficit). To lose 1/2 lb every week, you’ll need to eat a more moderate deficit of 250 calories per day (for a weekly total of 1750 calorie deficit). You shouldn’t eat less than 1,000 calories below maintenance every day (for a weekly 2lb of fat loss).
In addition to eating a calorie deficit, during a cut it’s important to focus on getting the right amount of protein and micronutrients to stay healthy.
Being in a caloric deficit puts your hormonal balance into what’s called a catabolic state—meaning your body is focused on breaking tissue down to access the energy stored in it. For this reason, it’s normal to lose some muscle and strength while in a cut. You can combat this breakdown of skeletal muscle by eating plenty of protein every day and by doing resistance training (more on training below).
Experts recommend eating between 0.7 and 1 gram of protein per lb of body weight to build muscle. While you’re in a cut, you’ll want to eat on the higher end of that range. So for example, if you weigh 150 lb you’d need to eat between 105 and 150 grams of protein each day—preferably closer to 150 grams.
To reach your daily protein goal, include a good source of lean protein at every meal and snack. To figure out how many grams of protein each meal and snack will need to be, divide your daily protein goal by the number of times per day that you eat.
For example, if your goal is to eat 150 grams of protein per day and you eat 3 meals and 1 snack every day, then you’ll need to have about 37 grams of protein every time you eat.
You may need to increase how often you eat each day to ensure that you’re hitting your goal—especially if you’re used to eating only twice or three times per day.
You can find tons of protein-rich meals and snack recipes on my Patreon page.
Experts generally recommend eating plenty of fruits and vegetables every day to stay healthy. This is especially true in a calorie deficit!
When your body isn’t getting the energy it needs and has to tap into its fat stores, other systems get reduced to save energy. You may notice your skin gets dryer, your nails become more brittle, and you may shed hair at a faster rate than normal. Your immune system also gets reduced while you’re in a calorie deficit. For this reason, it’s incredibly important to get plenty of micronutrients that boost immune function.
Increasing your intake of vegetables will allow you to get in those micronutrients while also decreasing your caloric intake (since vegetables are generally low in calories). Shoot for 1-2 servings of vegetables at each meal, and eat a variety of vegetable types throughout the week. If your diet and calorie goal allow, you can also eat 1-2 servings of fruit every day as well (just be mindful of the sugar content in fruit).
To make sure that you’re staying within your calorie and protein goals, track using MyFtitnessPal. Make sure to reset the daily calorie goal and protein goals (don’t use the number of calories that MyFitnessPal gives you).
How to Exercise While in a Cut
If you’re already staying active every day, doing cardio 3-5 times per week, and doing resistance training 2-5 times per week, you don’t really need to change much to your current exercise plan to burn fat.
However, if you want to burn even more calories, you can add more cardio to your weekly routine and focus on muscle-building in your resistance training workouts.
Cardio
The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends a total of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise each week to stay healthy. Accoding to the CDC, moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise is anything that gets your heart rate into its moderate-intensity zone (between 64% and 75% of your maximum heart rate).
You can use a heart rate monitor or fitness tracker to keep an eye on your heart rate while you exercise. Use the calculator linked below to calculate your target heart rate zone (THR):
If you don’t have a heart rate monitor or fitness tracker, you can also use the talking test to monitor your cardio intensity. For moderate-intensity cardio, you should be able to speak in full sentences, but you should not be able to sing. If you’re able to sing, your intensity is too low and you should move faster or increase your resistance to keep your heart rate in the right zone.
To burn more fat, you can double your moderate-intensity cardio to 300 minutes per week or you can incorporate high-intensity cardio into your exercise routine. High-intensity cardio is any vigorous activity that gets your heart rate between 76% and 93% of your maximum heart rate (you can use the same heart rate calculator linked above to see what your high-intensity heart rate zone is). The talking test also works for monitoring high-intensity exercise. At a high intensity, you should be able to talk in just a few words at a time between breaths. If you can’t talk at all, you’re working too hard and need to slow down or reduce your resistance.
There are lots of ways to get your cardio in!
Steady State is one of the most common styles of training moderate-intensity cardio. You can do Steady State cardio by going on a walk, bike ride, swim, or by using a cardio machine at the gym (like a treadmill, cross trainer, or stationary bike). For this style of training, you move at roughly the same pace and keep your heart rate within your moderate-intensity zone for between 20-50 minutes.
Another popular style of cardio exercise is Circuit Training. This involves alternating between several different exercises for a number of rounds. Depending on the exercises you use, how fast you move, and how much resistance you use, you can get your heart rate into the moderate- or high-intensity zone throughout your workout.
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is another great style to get your heart rate into the high-intensity zone. This involves alternating between intervals of vigorous exercise and lower intensity exercise or rest. You can incorporate HIIT into many kinds of exercise. For example, during a running workout, you can alternate between 15-second intervals of sprinting followed by 2 minutes of jogging at a more moderate pace.
If you’re working out at home, you can alternate between 20-second intervals of jumping jacks (or some other vigorously-paced exercise) and 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds, followed by 1 minute of rest (we call this HIIT style Tabata).
To prevent overuse, burnout, or injury, however, experts recommend doing high-intensity training no more than 2 times per week.
Many people also enjoy playing sports as part of their weekly cardio routine--volleyball, soccer, tennis, pickleball, and basketball are all great ways to have fun and socialize while you exercise! Google “recreational sports" in your local area and check out what organizations you can join.
There are also plenty of day-to-day tasks that can count as cardio! Some of my clients work in their yards or gardens, or they do housework (like cleaning and home improvement). Anything that gets your heart rate up for more than 10 minutes counts!
Some activities burn more calories than others, depending on how much effort you exert or how quickly you move. You can see a comprehensive list of different activities and the number of calories they burn by clicking the button below:
Muscle-Building
Being in a caloric deficit will allow you to burn body fat--but your body also breaks down muscle tissue to make up for the energy you’re not getting from your food. It’s normal to experience a loss of strength during a cut—and you will likely lose some muscle size as well.
To offset the loss of muscle during a cut, you can practice muscle-building styles of resistance training like bodybuilding or hypertrophy programs. The goal of these workouts will be to stimulate the muscle-building process to combat the loss of muscle as much as you can.
Bodybuilding and hypertrophy workouts feature high-volume training, usually with 2-3 sets per exercise of 6-15 repetitions per set and rest periods of between 30 seconds and 2 minutes between sets. You’ll want to use a moderate level of resistance that allows you to feel “the burn” and your muscles fatiguing in the last 2-3 repetitions of each set. For training with weights, the Strength and Conditioning Association recommends using between 67% and 85% of your 1 rep max weight for hypertrophy training.
There are many hypertrophy and bodybuilding programs available for free online. However if you would like a bit more guidance on workouts that I recommend, check out my Body Sculpt training plan library here on my website or on Patreon.
During your workouts, you may fatigue a lot faster and have a harder time recovering afterward. This is a normal (and annoying) part of being in a caloric deficit--but it shouldn’t be too extreme. If you’re frequently feeling dizzy and lightheaded during your workouts, it may be a sign that you’re in too deep of a deficit and need to either 1) add in more calories to your daily diet or 2) cut back on the frequency or intensity of your workouts.
Things to Note
Remember that being in a calorie deficit is not an ideal state for the body--it’s actually a stressor on your system! The deeper your deficit, the harder it will be to maintain due to the increased stress on your system. So before you go into a 500 or more calorie deficit--make sure that you are in a good place to be able to maintain that level. If not, think about doing a more shallow cut to your calories (100 to 250 calories below maintenance) and allow yourself more time to reach your goals.
While in a cut, your body is in low-power mode, so some systems will not function as well as when you’re in a maintenance or bulk phase. You may experience some of these symptoms:
Being cold more often (body fat is our body’s insulation, so getting leaner exposes you more to colder temperatures)
Overall fatigue and tiredness (not just in your workouts)
Feeling hungry more often
Sex drive decreases
Skin looks less vibrant, may become more dry
Nails and hair become thinner and more brittle (you may also lose hair faster)
Lowered immune system leading to more frequent sickness (this can be combated by taking a multivitamin!)
Irritability, mood swings, lower stress threshold
While these things are common while in a calorie deficit (especially if you’re cutting a large number of calories), keep an eye on them. If they become excessive, then you’ll want to adjust your calorie goal or workout plan to ease up the strain on your system.
Stay Consistent!
One of the most challenging pieces of burning fat is staying consistent with your plan. Help yourself by scheduling your workouts and meal prep each week in your calendar. Treat these as very important appointments, and avoid cancelling or rescheduling as much as you can.
Also, make sure to stay on top of tracking what you eat in MyFitnessPal. This will help make sure that you’re staying within your calorie goal each day. For best results, plug food into the app before you eat it while you’re planning your meals or snacks, then make adjustments to the meal as needed.
Make sure to join the Coaching Corner Discord to connect with the community and share your progress! This community is a free resource that allows you to interact more with me and my followers as well as get notified first hand as new content gets released.
Let me know if you have any questions in comments below! Don’t forget to “like” this post if you found it helpful, and share on social media if you think it might help someone else!
JAYD HARRISON
Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer and affiliate streamer on Twitch. She has been an active trainer since 2014 and now specializes in comprehensive weight loss coaching. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch on Tuesdays & Thursdays 11:30am EST for a Fit Q&A session.
Follow Jayd on social media by clicking on the icons below:
Do These 3 Things to Burn Fat
Struggling to lose weight and keep it off? There are three things you must do if you want to burn fat for good. Check out this week’s blog post to learn more about how to balance your energy budget for fat loss.
Body fat is stored energy.
When it comes to fat loss, it’s all about balancing your energy budget!
When we take in more energy in our food than our bodies use, the extra energy gets stored as fat for later use. This is kind of like our bodies’ energy “insurance” policy—if we at some point find ourselves in a situation where we can’t eat as much as we need, we can still live off the stored energy in our body fat.
Body fat also serves other important functions in our health. Subcutaneous fat (the fat stored under our skin) has an important insulation function—keeping our bodies at the right temperature. The visceral fat in your torso protects your organs from damage. Body fat also helps to maintain cell health and to regulate our hormones. So it’s actually a good thing to have *some* fat stored in our bodies!
However, there are health problems that can occur when the amount of fat in your body is either too low or too high.
What Happens When Body Fat is Too Low or too high?
Everyone has a certain amount of fat that is necessary for maintaining health—this is called “essential fat.” For male bodies, essential fat is usually about 5%. For female bodies, essential fat is about 15%. Your unique body may require more or less before you begin to experience health problems.
When your body fat percentage drops below essential fat, you become increasingly at risk of getting sick due to decreased immune system functioning. You also risk developing heart problems, and you’ll have a much harder time recovering from your workouts. Having too low a body fat percentage can also lead to problems in your reproductive system. In men, low body fat percentages can cause testosterone levels to drop as well as sperm count and libido. Women who drop below essential body fat often lose their periods and have difficulty getting pregnant.
On the other side of the spectrum, having too much body fat can lead to other health problems—including an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, type II diabetes, and some kinds of cancers.
To stay healthy, it’s best to keep your body fat within a certain range of percentages, depending on your age. For men that looks like (source):
Ages 20-29: between 8% and 18.6%
Ages 30-39: between 8% and 21.3%
Ages 40-49: between 8% and 23.4%
Ages 50-59: between 8% and 24.6%
Over 60: between 8% and 25.2%
For women, healthy body fat percentages are:
Ages 20-29: between 14% and 22.7%
Ages 30-39: between 14% and 24.6%
Ages 40-49: between 14% and 27.6%
Ages 50-59: between 14% and 30.4%
Over 60: between 14% and 31.3%
If you find yourself on the higher end of the spectrum and would like to focus on burning fat—remember it’s all about that energy balance! In general, you’ll need to keep your body burning more calories than what you take in over an extended period of time to burn body fat.
3 Steps to Fat Loss
In training, a fat loss phase is called a “cut.” There are generally three main things you need to do for an effective cut phase:
Reduce Calorie Intake
Get Moving
Build Muscle
The main focus of a cut phase is keeping your body in a caloric deficit--meaning you eat fewer calories than what your body burns. We first do this by reducing your calorie intake below your maintenance level of calories.
Step 1: Reduce Calorie Intake
We all have a certain amount of calories that our bodies need just to maintain their everyday functions. This is called our maintenance level of calories.
You can get an estimate of what your maintenance level of calories is by using an online calculator to determine your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). This will give you a rough idea of how many calories you would need to eat every day just to keep your body weight the same.
To go into a caloric deficit—you should plan to eat *below* your maintenance level of calories.
It takes about 3500 calories total below maintenance to burn 1 pound of fat—but it’s best to spread that deficit out over the course of 1-2 weeks.
So to burn 1 pound of fat per week, you could eat 500 calories below your maintenance level every day. That way, over the course of 7 days, you’d have a total deficit of 3500 calories.
For a more moderate approach of burning 0.5 pounds of fat per week, you could eat 250 calories below maintenance every day (over the course of one week, this would be a 1750 calorie deficit).
For extreme cases of fat loss, you could go into a 1,000 calorie deficit every day to lose 2 pounds of fat per week. However a deficit this steep is only recommended for people who are severely overweight and already have a high maintenance level of calories to begin with. It’s best not to exceed the 1,000 calorie deficit to avoid developing health problems as you lose weight.
To keep your calorie intake within your daily goal, track what you eat in an app like MyFitnessPal or follow a meal plan designed for the goal number of calories you’re aiming to eat.
Step 2: Get Moving
At the same time that you reduce your calorie intake, you should also focus on exercising in a way that gets your body burning more calories. You can do this by increasing the amount of cardiovascular exercise that you do each week.
The American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes total each week of moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise to maintain health. For fat loss, the AHA recommends 300 minutes. You can break that time up into 5 days each week by going on a 45-60 minute walk—or doing some other activity that has you up and moving to get your heart rate up into your moderate-intensity zone. Remember—the more you move, the more calories you burn!
Learn more about how to do Cardiovascular exercise for burning fat in my article How to Burn Fat with Cardio.
Step 3: Build Muscle
At the same time that you get more active, it’s also important to incorporate muscle-building resistance training into your weekly training routine as well. Muscle is one of the main drivers of our metabolisms—the more you have, the more calories you burn!
As we burn fat in a caloric deficit, our bodies break down muscle as well as fat to make up for the energy we aren’t getting in our diets. As our muscle breaks down, our metabolisms slow down—making it harder and harder to continue losing weight over time. You can keep your body from slowing down and avoid hitting a weight loss plateau by performing resistance training 2-3 times per week.
Resistance training for fat loss should focus on building muscle—so bodybuilding programs or high-volume programs for hypertrophy are best. Check out my Body Sculpt program to learn more.
Sustaining Your Fat Loss
These three pieces are essential to achieving sustainable fat loss! So if you’ve found yourself struggling in the past, check your plan to make sure that you’re doing all of the—eating a calorie deficit, get in that cardio, and build some muscle.
Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains)
Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer, nutrition coach, and affiliate streamer on Twitch. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch on Tuesdays & Thursdays 11am EST. Follow Jayd on social media by clicking on the icons below:
Trainer's Tips for the Holidays
In case you are stressing about keeping up with your training and nutrition plans, let me just tell you right now–it is 100% okay to enjoy the holidays. Living a fit lifestyle is all about balance. Your body only reflects what you do most of the time! So if most of the time you eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly–a few days off isn’t going to set you back in your progress!
The holidays are here!! 🎉
In case you are stressing about keeping up with your training and nutrition plans, let me just tell you right now–it is 100% okay to enjoy the holidays.
Eat that cookie. Sit around the house with your family and pets. Enjoy your time!
Living a fit lifestyle is all about balance. Your body only reflects what you do most of the time.
So if most of the time you eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly–a few days off isn’t going to set you back in your progress!
If you would like to minimize the “damage” of the holidays, just remember to try and follow your exercise and diet plan as best you can. You might not be able to do 100%, but every little bit counts!
A couple good rules of thumb are to:
Eat lots of protein and vegetables throughout the day. If there are veggie and protein food options at a holiday event, fill your plate with those first before going for the “goodies” (i.e., cookies, brownies, sugary or alcoholic drinks, etc).
Try to stay active as much as you can (go on walks, hikes, bike rides, etc).
Get your workouts in when you can, even if you need to do them at a lighter intensity than you normally would.
But please—don’t stress about not being able to follow your training or nutrition program to the “t” right now!
In fact, it’s actually good for our bodies and brains to take a break once in a while from the rigors of diet and exercise.
Many people who regularly incorporate “cheat” days or meals (or as I like to call them “treat” days or meals) have a better time overall following their plans in the long run. Being disciplined all the time is stressful! Giving yourself a break to relax might just make it easier to recommit to your program once the holidays are over.
Taking a break from intense workouts can also help to resensitize your body to your training. This is why many bodybuilders and powerlifters incorporate deload weeks regularly into their training every 4 to 8 weeks.
So if you’ve been worried that you’ll lose all the progress you’ve made over the last year during the holidays–take a deep breath and relax! Enjoy your holiday! You deserve it :)
Your mental health is just as important as your physical fitness–and cutting lose once in a while is an essential part of getting those mental health gains!
In the worst case scenario, you might develop a habit out of a holiday behavior (such as eating sweets or staying sedentary all day). In this case, we can always create a plan of action to get you back on track.
But at the end of the day, you gotta know yourself!
If there are some holiday behaviors that you know are extremely hard for you to stop once you start (drinking alcohol, for instance), then perhaps it’s best to plan to omit those things from your celebrations. Or at the very least, put some boundaries around it so that you have a clear “stopping point” which allows you to enjoy the thing without getting carried away.
Having a clear plan for getting back on track after the holidays can also help you to relax and enjoy the holidays more. In your calendar, go ahead and mark out the days/times you’re going to do your workouts and meal prep when the holidays are over.
I hope that these tips will help you to enjoy the holidays! I’m Looking forward to hearing about your New Years’ resolutions in January :)
-Jayd
Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains)
Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer and affiliate streamer on Twitch. She has been an active trainer since 2014 and now specializes in comprehensive weight loss coaching. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch on Tuesdays & Thursdays 11am EST for a Fit Q&A session.
Follow Jayd on social media by clicking on the icons below:
How to Burn Fat with Cardio
A great way to get your body burning tons of calories is to incorporate cardiovascular exercise into your weekly workout routine. Click here to learn how to incorporate cardiovascular exercise into your workouts!
If your goal is to burn fat, remember: it’s all about the calories!
For our bodies to burn fat, we need to be in a calorie deficit—meaning our bodies are burning more calories than we take in through the food that we eat.
A great way to get your body burning tons of calories is to do cardiovascular exercise in your weekly workout routine.
Cardiovascular exercise (or “cardio” for short) is any activity that gets your heart rate up for an extended period of time.
This includes things like power walking, jogging, swimming, biking, and circuit training.
Different activities burn different amounts of calories—depending on how quickly you move, how many muscles you use, and the amount of resistance you move with.
In general, the main principle with cardio for fat is: the more you move, the more calories you burn.
How Often Should You Do Cardio?
The American Heart Association recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity cardio total each week (300 minutes of moderate intensity cardio for fat loss).
To reach the minimum, many people do 30 minutes of moderate intensity cardio on 5 days each, whereas others prefer to do cardio 3 times per week for 50 minutes.
You can cut some of your cardio workouts in half the time by getting your heart rate into a high intensity zone. Each minute of high intensity cardio counts as 2 minutes of moderate intensity cardio. Experts don’t recommend doing high intensity cardio more than 2 times per week to avoid overtraining, burnout, or overuse injuries.
Cardio Intensity Levels
How can you tell if you’re working at a moderate or high intensity? You can check your exercise intensity by monitoring your heart rate while you exercise. You can calculate your target heart rate zones by using an online calculator like this one (click here).
The Moderate Intensity Zone is between 64% and 76% of your Max Heart Rate.
The High Intensity Zone is between 77% and 95% of your Max Heart Rate.
Monitor your heart rate manually or by wearing a heart rate monitor or fitness tracker (like a FitBit or Apple Watch).
Another easy way to test your cardio intensity is by doing the Talking Test:
If you can speak comfortably, you're at a low intensity and need to bump up the pace!
If you can talk in a few words at a time, you’re at a moderate intensity.
If you can speak only a word or two at a time you’re at a high intensity.
Make sure to pay attention to how hard you’re working throughout your cardio workout to make sure you’re in the right intensity zone.
Types of Cardio Workouts
There are tons of different ways to get in cardiovascular exercise!
The most common types of cardio that you’ll see in the gym are Steady State or Circuit Training.
Steady State Cardio is any repetitive exercise that allows you to control your pace and keep your heart rate at about the same level for an extended period of time (20-50 minutes). This includes power walking, jogging, jumping rope, swimming, biking, or using a cardio machine like an elliptical or stair climber.
Circuit Training is a kind of workout where you alternate between many different exercises (usually at least 3 exercises per circuit). Many people find Circuit Training to be more fun than Steady State Cardio. This kind of cardio also allows you to vary your heart rate between high and moderate intensity zones, depending on the exercises you use and the pace you move.
You can do Circuits based on timed intervals (30 seconds of jumping jacks, 30 seconds of jump squats, etc) or based on repetitions for each exercise (50 jumping jacks, 15 jump squats, etc).
Many of my clients also enjoy playing sports as part of their weekly cardio routine--volleyball, soccer, tennis, pickle ball, and basketball are all great ways to have fun while you stay moving! Google “recreational sports in [your local area]” and check out what organizations you can join.
You can see a more comprehensive list of different types of cardiovascular exercise and the amount of calories they burn on average by clicking here.
Manage Your Calories
Remember, if your goal is to burn fat, you’ll need to make sure that you are in a calorie deficit. You can’t just rely on cardio to reach your fat loss goals—you also need to pay attention to what you eat. You can’t out-train a bad diet!
To make the most of your training, you’ll need to manage your calorie intake either through tracking what you eat every day or through meal planning.
To make your diet effective, you’ll first need to figure out how many calories your body burns on an average day. Do this by calculating your Total Daily Calorie Expenditure (TDEE).
Your TDEE will give you an idea of how many calories your body burns each day—however keep in mind that this number is just an estimate! To find your true TDEE, you would need to test your calorie intake on a weekly basis to find your maintenance level (that is, the amount of calories you need to eat to not burn or store fat).
In order to burn 1 pound of fat every week, you’ll need to aim to eat 500 calories below your maintenance level of calories. To burn 1/2 pound of fat each week, you’ll need to eat 250 calories below your maintenance level.
You can track your daily calorie intake using a food tracking app like MyFitnessPal (download for iOS or Android).
If tracking your food every day is too tedious, you can also manage your daily calorie intake by meal planning. This involves planning what you will eat every day around how many calories you aim to eat as well as your macronutrients like protein. Choose recipes and snacks based on their calorie and macronutrient content to make sure they fit into your goals.
You can download tons of sample meal prep weekly plans from my Meal Plans collection.
Many people find it simplest to Meal Prep every few days or at the beginning of each week. Meal Prep involves preparing your meals and snacks ahead of time so that you can grab-and-go throughout the week.
Take the stress out of meal planning with this Trainer’s Guide to Meal Prep! This ebook features step-by-step guidance and templates to help you reach your fitness goals through healthy eating. It’s also packed with over 150 easy-to-make recipes to minimize your time in the kitchen and maximize your gains. Recipes include vegetarian, vegan, and pescatarian options. Get started today!
Written by certified personal trainer & nutrition coach Jayd Harrison.
Give it Time
Once you get started in your new workout and diet plan, give it at least a week or two before making any other changes. You can measure your fat loss progress by stepping on the scale once per week or by taking your body measurements.
Don’t panic if you see the scale go up and down over the course of a few days. Fat loss is not linear for most people! Our body weight can fluctuate within 1 to 5 pounds even within the same day, depending on the water we’re storing.
You’ll want to look for an overall trend of decreasing weight or inches (or cm) over the course of a few weeks to know if your plan is effective.
If you’re not seeing the progress you want, make adjustments to your plan every 7 to 14 days (either by adding more cardio or decreasing calories). You won’t be able to know the effectiveness of each adjustment you make in your workout routine or diet plan for at least a week (usually two weeks), so try not to change too many things at once.
Just remember—sustainable fat loss is a marathon, not a sprint!
Connect & Share
What’s your plan for getting your body burning fat? Are you going to incorporate cardiovascular exercise into your weekly training routine? Let me know in the comments below.
Make sure to “like” the post and share on social media if you found it helpful!
Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains)
Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer, nutrition coach, and fitness influencer. She has been an active trainer since 2014 and now specializes in comprehensive weight loss coaching. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch on Tuesdays & Thursdays 11am EST for a Fit Q&A session.